(Reuters) - As China clamps down on its exports of rare earth, makers of batteries, wind turbines and other products are looking for ways to redesign them to use less of the increasingly costly materials.

"We're in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency. This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness." This complaint by Guido Mantega, Brazil's finance minister, is entirely understandable.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It may have staved off a financial system meltdown, but the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion bailout program is so reviled by the public that its distaste may rub off on incumbent Democrats in November elections.

This is very bad indeed: women are leaving the financial-services industry even as men are joining it; and the trend is most pronounced among the youngest cohorts of the population, who will be running the industry in the future.

The downturn that some have dubbed the "Great Recession" has trimmed the typical household's income significantly, new Census data show, following years of stagnant wage growth that made the past decade the worst for American families in at least half a century.

China's plans to make its currency global could change the world - if they get off the ground. More international use of the yuan might increase China's trade clout, unseat the mighty U.S. dollar and make a lot of financiers very rich in the process. But it can be hard to separate the facts from the fable. Here are some questions answered.

It is a steamy day in Manhattan but buyers from Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and other big-name department stores have been lured out of their air-conditioned lairs to the midtown offices of an Indian company called S. Kumars Nationwide Limited.